"The people who do us good are never those who sympathize with us, they always hinder, because sympathy enervates." Oswald Chambers
“There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just fine.”
“I don’t need any help. I can handle things by myself.”
“I opened up once, and look where it got me. I’ll never do that again.”
People who need help—people who need recovery—are often the most difficult people in the world to reach. They deny there is a problem and refuse to seek the help they desperately need to recover. To do so would be an admission of weakness, and that’s something many are unwilling to do, especially men.
For those of us who know the value of help that comes from those who have “traveled our path,” it’s hard to understand why so many choose to continue in self-defeating behavior rather than make the necessary changes to live a life of value—a life rich with meaning and purpose.
When it comes to religious abuse, the task of overcoming denial is even more difficult because, unlike abusing alcohol, food, sex, or drugs, there’s no outward manifestation of dysfunction. It’s all on the inside, where its destructiveness eats away at the soul of the abusee.
Frequently, someone will ask how they can convince a friend or loved one to seek help. The answer is simple: Most of the time, you can’t.
The person in need has to come to that realization without your interference. Until that happens, there’s nothing you can do other than pray they will bottom-out and become willing to make seek help. There are things, however, that you can do that will hinder the recovery of another.
You can sympathize with their difficulties, which will do nothing but feed into their self-pity.
You can agree with them in their delusion that they are coping with life the best that they can.
You can enable them to continue with self-destructive attitudes and behavior by not allowing them to suffer the proper consequences of their actions.
You can make things easier for them—softening life’s blows by intervening, which seems like “the Christian” thing to do.
Each of these actions is what a good friend would do, right?
Wrong!
It’s how you prolong their suffering and their avoidance of reality. By being a “good friend,” you may inadvertently be standing in the way of the Lord who is intent on gaining the attention of the person who is suffering. Let them crash. When the pain becomes too intense, they will reach out for help—not before. It’s much better to pray for a loved one to reach the end of their rope than to ask God to minimize their suffering when they are headed in the wrong direction.
God meets people in their brokenness—not in their denial.
(many thanks to John "Jack" Watts for the content of this post)
